Make it stop

by Patti


S has been mad at me the past few days because I couldn't chaperon her field trip to the Museum of Science & Industry this week. Work has been really busy, and I already took the day off for President's Day, and, well, this time around, I just couldn't do it.

I have chaperoned countless trips for S. When I was self-employed, I had much more flexibility (though, much larger bank anxiety), and the trade-off for all the headaches that came along with self-employment was the ability to be able to stay home without having to ask permission when my kid was sick, or wanted me at her classroom Halloween party, or begged me to come along with her and her classmates to the Field Museum. I have also volunteered to be backstage at her recitals to help other girls with their hair and makeup, spent hour after hour at the pool with S and invited friends, and I have done everything I can to make sure she has a pretty awesome birthday party every single year.

Yet, all S seems to remember is the handful of times I simply just can't. And though logically I know those handfuls of times will be but blips on her radar of childhood resentments, I can't help but panic just a little right now. You see, S will be 11 years old in 38 days. THIRTY. EIGHT. DAYS. She will be officially entering into preteen territory, where hormones will take hold of her delicate little child neck and snap it and she will come back to life as an eye-rolling, back-talking, door-slamming, bra-wearing, gum-smacking, attitude-popping, mother-hating mess. And I don't know, maybe it's my own hormones that are swirling about at this very moment, wreaking havoc on my forehead and making my pants feel tight, but it's making me sad.

In the past couple of months, I have felt... a shift. When I hug S, I feel a very subtle pulling away. When she catches me looking at her with those "annoying" love eyes, rather than giggle, she gets slightly irritated. M will be going to Argentina to visit his parents for a couple of weeks in March, leaving S and I at home, and normally, this is something we'd both secretly look forward to -- the night after night we will slumber party together in the "the big bed" eating popcorn and reading books, or surfing the 'net. But this time around, S is a little hesitant about whether or not she wants to sleep with me. And though I put on a brave face and say, "that's fine if you decide not to," in my heart, it's not fine, not at all. And that is when I want to slap myself purple for all of the nights she begged me to lay down with her, or to read her just one more story, or to stay just five minutes longer, or to go with her on her field trip..... and I said no.

They aren't kidding, those "theys" that tell you: "Enjoy it while it lasts; it goes by so fast!" "They'll be grown before you know it!" "One day you'll look back and miss these days!" Those "theys"? They know things. When S was only a couple of months old, M and I went to a client's child's birthday party, and I was sitting in a corner with her, trying to stay awake as kids ran all around me, screaming. The father of one of those screaming kids came and sat next to me on the couch, gazing at the then-tiny S with a mixture of awe and sadness. "I wish there was a way to bottle them up at this age," he said, rather wistfully. "Blink, and it's over." At the time, in the haze of new motherhood exhaustion and the feeling of infinity that stretched before me, I only knew to smile and nod. But I didn't truly understand, how could I?

And now? The clock seems to be operating on elapsed time, and I am realizing with a bittersweetness I can hardly bear that it's happening -- she's really, really growing up. And what I wouldn't do to bottle her up and make it stop.